Duhok-Mosul border crossing still taking customs duties – flouting deal: sources

DUHOK, Kurdistan Region – Despite an agreement reached between Iraqi and Kurdish authorities to remove customs checkpoints on the internal border between federal Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, officials in Duhok and Nineveh say duties are still being charged. 

The Iraqi General Customs Board last week decreed the removal of three customs checkpoints, which had been established on routes between Erbil and Kirkuk, Sulaimani and Kirkuk, and Duhok and Mosul following the ISIS takeover of Mosul and the events of October 16, 2017.

However, reports indicate officials manning these checkpoints are flouting the agreement and continuing to tax freight-carrying trucks.

“Three days after the decision was made, they closed the roads on some different pretexts. But now, they allow trucks into Mosul during nighttime, subjecting them to customs charges as it was the case in the past,” said an official from Duhok Governorate’s Customs Department, who wished to remain anonymous.

“Some 500 load trucks carry commodities and food items and construction materials to Mosul. Each truck is charged, per its load, one to three million dinars ($830-$2,500),” he said. “The total amount they make is one billion dinars ($834,000) per day.”

The customs checkpoints have not been removed because “in addition to the government, the money goes to some administrative and military officials in Mosul,” the official claimed. 

The initial purpose of the customs checkpoints was to “weaken the Kurdistan Region’s border crossings, especially Ibrahim Khalil” on the Turkish frontier, the sources added.

“This is because people are charged with customs at Ibrahim Khalil and they are once again charged at the Faida customs point [between Duhok and Mosul]. They are thereby forced to shift their trade route to the Um Qasir port in Basra,” he added.

Saedo Chato, head of the Nineveh Provincial Council in Mosul, told Rudaw they were against the installation of internal customs checkpoints and asked several times for their removal.

“Some administrative officials of Mosul prevent the Iraqi General Customs Board’s decision from being implemented,” Chato said. 

“We will send a correspondence to the Mosul Province to learn why the decision has not yet been implemented,” he added.

Mosul is just 50 kilometers from Duhok. Customs duties are harming Duhok’s business community.

According to data from the Duhok Chamber of Commerce, some 160 companies from Duhok had branches in Mosul before ISIS seized the city. They are now eager to go back and resume operations.

“Customs charges at Faida customs checkpoint are negatively impacting Duhok businessmen as they are subject to a double charge – one in Ibrahim Khalil and the other in Faida,” Ayad Hassan, head of the Duhok Chamber of Commerce, told Rudaw.

“This complexity has slowed down trade between Duhok and Mosul.”